Menu

Aug 3 – 9

“>Small no name game by no name devs
>More than a dozen threads the minute it’s announced even though no one is going to be fucking following no name devs and their projects
>Every single thread uses tag lines from the trailer that almost no one had seen
>Have never ever seen /v/ make a fuss like this about any other small project, with history or no names to back it up, making untenable promises, no matter how dead the genre

Yep, pretty safe to guess it’s viral. Either that or it got big on Reddit or something and all the people over there come here to start threads about it. Either way it’s getting really annoying.”

“Celebrity worship is disgusting.”

“That’s ‘Murikan culture for ya’, since they don’t have a monarchy they feel the void with shallow bitches who put out sex tapes.”

__________________

“>ghost child PTSD bullshit
I only played the demo, but I’m guessing a career soldier is haunted by the death of a kid he just so happened to be near when they died and not say the hundreds of others he’s personally gunned down or seen die before.”

“BINGO, you actually get a bunch of SO SAD dreams about the kid
because making the game have an actual impact and say having you dream about various people you let die during the series would have been to hard”

“I’m guessing he doesn’t give a second thought to anyone that died at the end of the 2nd game too, if anyone died on you. And he actually knew those fucking people for more then 5 minutes.”

“something hilarious, various fan liked character were killed off in side materials quickly because they forgot to put them into the game

one of them even got killed off during a god damn TWITTER update just so they could make room in the game to put a FRIGGIN IGN REPORTER in as NPC”

“>you now realize that Diana Allers (Jessica Chobot) resides in the room where Zaeed used to stay”

“Why would he they all got conveniently replaced by some clones and their names put on a plaque to help speed up the grieving process. I’m more concerned by the fact that a renegade Shepard that could shoot someone through the head or throw them out of a whatever story building without flinching suddenly can’t sleep because of some random kid I’m starting to believe that he may have had what some would consider a unhealthy relationship with this kid during the time he wa s grounded”

“This. This is what I hate about how the sequels handed your choices.

It didn’t matter if a character died or whatnot, they just ended up swapped for an analogous character that was almost exactly like them minus whatever charms they may have had.

It was basically them saying “Sure, the game is all about the choices you make, but it takes too much work to actually make your choices matter to any degree, so fuck you.”

Wrex dies
>doesn’t matter, we Grunt now

Save the council
>doesn’t matter, they’re all dicks regardless if you saved them or they get replaced

Choose Anderson over Udina
>Fuck you, you get Udina anyways (at least that made a bit of story sense given a massive war breaking out and Anderson being a career soldier.)

“>Elcor ambassador asks me to save his people because their planet is under reaper assault
>take mission, go there, happy because finally elcor themed mission
>alright seems like I gotta scan a bit to find the landing point, no worries there’s other missions like this
>okay seems like I found the point now to…250 war credits received mission complete

ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME

THIS IS NOT OKAY BIOWARE THIS IS NOT FUCKING OKAY”

__________________

“Valkyria Chronicles is a unique game within the genre of turn-based strategy games. It’s a mix of that classic slow paced strategy with the fast action of a third-person shooter. But the most unique feature of the game is its surprisingly well defined supporting cast. Since these characters are not part of the main story, their development must be done outside the narrative of the game. Valkyria Chronicles manages this with a system of menus, descriptive traits, and the slow reveal of each character’s past.

In other turn-based strategy games, players build up their army by recruiting low-level soldiers with no special skills and then train them into something useful. Since these soldiers are not part of the main story they have no personality, no back story, and no individuality. Not so in Valkyria Chronicles.

From the very beginning we’re encouraged to view the supporting cast as real characters and not as cannon fodder needed to fill out our team. When selecting our squad for the first time in the Command Room, we pick from a list of 30 potential candidates. The first thing players will notice is that every character on the list looks different. From their facial features, hair color, hair style, skin color, or age, there’s no mistaking one for another. Each is visually unique and easily identifiable, and certain soldiers are guaranteed to stand out to certain players based solely on appearances.

Next to each picture is a small list of character traits. Some soldiers may be described as a “Hard Worker” or a “Challenge Lover” or “Meadow Bred.” These traits are not just descriptions but have tangible effects on the battlefield. A “Hard Worker” will occasionally get to take an extra action during a turn. A “Challenge Lover” gets a boost in attack power when charging into the fray and being “Meadow Bred” increases one’s defense while in grassy meadows. Since these advantages and disadvantages are worded as actual behaviors and not just statistics, they help solidify the personality of each character. The player quickly learns what soldier has what trait and how to best use those traits to gain an advantage on the front lines. For example, I’ll always send a “Challenge Lover” or “Hard Worker” to mount an attack because those traits make them well suited for direct combat, and I’ll never use someone who’s “Meadow Bred” while in a city. I’m encouraged to use the character in a way that reinforces their personality, and in doing so, those traits written in the Command Room menu become a self-fulfilling depiction of that personality.

Also next to each picture and below the list of traits are three names of people that this character likes. These aren’t random names; they’re other soldiers and potential squad mates. Trying to follow this web of relationships can be daunting if a player tries to map it out, but what’s important is that these characters all know each other. They all live in the same world and have their own set of friends and enemies. When following this web, there’s a sense that we’re stepping into the middle of a world that exists beyond the player, that the story of Valkyria Chronicles is just one story within a larger world. These characters had lives before the official story began and will continue on after the official story ends.

In addition to all the information given to us in the Command Room when selecting squad members, each character has a short biography, but in the beginning of the game, these bios are woefully short and don’t offer any personal information to flesh out the characters beyond what we already know from the Command Room. However, the more we use a character in battle, the longer their bio becomes. Like any relationship, the more time that we spend with someone the more that we learn about them. By requiring the player to use a character in battle before we can learn any of their back story, the game limits the number of potential characters we might come to care about. While this action seems counter-progressive, it’s inevitable that when dealing with a large group of people some of them will remain strangers, and by limiting the number of relationships we can build, those characters we do come to care about are made to stand out from the rest of the squad. These are the people that we have fought alongside over and over again. We grow attached to them just through this repeated use and that attachment is then bolstered by progressive character development. By the time a character’s bio is filled, we’ve fought enough battles with them and learned enough about them that we have developed a real relationship with them. And as we learn more about their history with each battle, they become less stereotypical and more multi-dimensional, becoming teammates who we genuinely mourn for when they die and all of this is accomplished without a single line of dialogue.”

“Being scared of an unspoken rule, one only created to give strong teams an advantage, would be embaressing.”

“If we hit, we win. If we give up, we lose.”

“Though we have heard of stupid haste in war, cleverness has never been seen associated with long delays. There is no instance of a nation benefiting from prolonged warfare. Speed is the essence of war.”

“Playing [starcraft] multiplayer is a massively negative experience for casuals, since it’s 1v1 and the only one to blame in those games is yourself.”